I've never really understood the relationship either. I would love it if someone with knowledge could explain it.

I mean I know that Inferno was a stable, marketable release of plan9 that was commerical failure and the rights sold to VitaNova. And I think it may even include a jvm? VitaNova eventually released the source for Inferno under GPL. Is VitaNova still actively developing it or is it just maintenance?

So now plan9 development has diverged from Inferno? Who is continuing it, what are the main development goals, and is there a mailing list or something?